


And if my wishes came true, it would've been you

by fleurjaune



Series: but it would've been fun, if you would've been the one [1]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Infidelity, F/M, Flashbacks, Gabriel is oblivious, Identity Issues, Irony, Maybe - Freeform, Minor Emilie Agreste/Gabriel Agreste | Papillon | Hawk Moth, Non-Chronological, Poor Nathalie Sancoeur, Possible Character Death, Possibly Unrequited Love, Romantic Angst, Romantic Soulmates, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Terminal Illnesses, Unrequited Love, except worse somehow, in a way that has nothing to do with their supervillain identities
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-07
Updated: 2020-10-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:21:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26875114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fleurjaune/pseuds/fleurjaune
Summary: As Nathalie's condition gets worse Gabriel can't understand how her main concern can be making sure her soulmate doesn't find out.
Relationships: Gabriel Agreste | Papillon | Hawk Moth/Nathalie Sancoeur
Series: but it would've been fun, if you would've been the one [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1985606
Comments: 18
Kudos: 91





	And if my wishes came true, it would've been you

Despite wielding the Butterfly Miraculous Gabriel is aware that he’s not generally accounted to be a particularly emotionally astute man, but even he can’t pretend everything’s ok when Nathalie comes out of the hospital and gets back into the car.

Her red-rimmed eyes herald the worst. That it’s already gone too far, and there’s nothing he can do now to stop him losing her the same way he’d lost Emilie.

“Nathalie?” He asks anyway, “Is there anything we can do?”

She lets out a sound between a laugh and sob, and the lump in his throat feels even larger for having reduced someone usually so stoic to this. He’s glad for both their sakes that the divider between them and his driver is already shut.

“I was going to ask if you could recommend a lawyer.” She says, “But I couldn’t afford anyone you’d use.”

“A lawyer?” He asks lost, “You must know I’ll cover the costs, but why would you need a lawyer?”

It can’t be for their crimes. If she’d been exposed as Mayura she wouldn’t have been allowed to leave the hospital, and she’d have warned him somehow, he knows she would. This has to be something else.

Nathalie starts to cry in earnest and now he can’t not panic because this _just does not happen._ Until all of this had happened, until Emilie was lost, he’d barely ever seen a blip in her professional persona. Now she’s more open if only in part because she _can’t_ hide her exhaustion from him anymore, but she’s never broken down like this.

She’s not stopping and he should do something, he _has_ to do something but he doesn’t know what. Nobody comes to _him_ for comfort. Her physical breakdown he can help with. Her emotional one is leaving him completely unmoored.

He owes her something though, even if it’s completely insufficient, so he undoes his seatbelt to move across and hug her. It seems to help her somewhat because she clings to him like he’s a rock keeping her from drowning.

She swallows then says, “They said they’ll inform my soulmate when I die.”

He should be telling her that she won’t die. That she can just stop using the Peacock Miraculous and she’ll be fine, but his mind is stuck on those two words.

_Her soulmate._

He’d thought Nathalie’s soulmate was _dead._ She’d implied he was dead. He’d thought that was why she was so ready to help him on his quest to revive Emilie. That she had some idea of what that pain was like. He’d even had ideas that maybe if they won and got Emilie back, that maybe they could try and bring back Nathalie’s soulmate too.

Now he can’t stop re-running the few conversations he’d had with her on the subject in his head.

* * *

He’s distracted when he returns to the Atelier. _Something_ is wrong with Emilie. He’s convinced of that. She keeps saying it’s just a cough but it’s been months and it’s still there, and she’s refusing to go to a doctor. Or to go to a doctor with his knowledge at least. She’s become so secretive these days.

There isn’t the time to supervise her every minute of the day though. Not if he wants to keep the brand going, though honestly he’s not sure that he _does_ at the moment. Emilie is more important than his money, than his name.

He opens his emails anyway trying to triage the flow where Nathalie hasn’t already intercepted it. He pauses on one and looks over at his assistant. He’d barely given her a glance when he’d entered the room. She’d seemed hard at work as usual.

“Nathalie?”

“Yes, sir?”

“This is very short notice for this day you’re taking off.” He points out. It’s uncharacteristic and he doesn’t _like_ it. His wife’s already keeping secrets from him, he doesn't need his assistant to start too.

“I’m sorry sir. HR approved it.”

She’s never anything short of professional but somehow she looks more tense than usual, and he’s not sure that it’s _just_ because he’s questioning her. A concerning suspicion bubbles up. He _has_ been distracted recently, and that must have made things more difficult for her.

“You’re not going for an interview are you?” He tries to make it a joke, “I'd hate to have to break in a new assistant.”

He realises as he says it that he's probably not supposed to say things like that. She probably has some sort of legal right to get a new job if she wants one.

Nathalie just stares at him, and he gets the distinct impression he's got it totally wrong.

“I? No sir. I'm not thinking of leaving.” She says eventually.

“Good.” He says, but he can't help but look her over. She doesn’t _look_ ill. Not like Emilie does. Something is up though. Maybe he's not the only one in this office with personal issues.

“Has something happened?” He tries even thought he's unsure why he's asking. After all it's only his business if it affects her ability to work, “In your personal life?”

“I’m moving.” She says.

He can't help but be a little annoyed. He’d almost been concerned, and apparently she'd just failed to apply the organisation she forces on his life to her own, “On a weekday?”

“It’s a little complicated. I wouldn’t do it if I could avoid it sir.”

“Complicated?”

“My boyfriend,” She shuts her eyes for a moment, “Ex-Boyfriend is moving his soulmate and her kid in then. So I kind of have to be gone.”

“He wasn’t _your_ soulmate then?” He says, and he’s unable to quite keep the censure out of his voice. Few combinations of first names and surnames are uncommon enough that it’s impossible to mistake the wrong person for your soulmate but possibility of _two_ people both having the names of each other’s soulmates are so low it seems unlikely. More likely Nathalie’s one of the growing amount of people who see no reason to hold out for their soulmate and that boggles him.

Centuries ago when people barely travelled outside their villages he could understand settling for the girl next door but that’s hardly the case now, especially with the sites he’s heard of on the internet, and the idea he could have employed someone so cruel as to not care that she’s abandoning her soulmate so close to his family is discomforting.

“We both thought our soulmates were an impossibility.” She says, “Only it turns out his _isn’t_ and she was in an abusive situation, so how can I resent that?”

She smiles sadly and it might be the first non-work related emotion he’s ever seen from her.

“But you’re having to move out?” He says, even though he wants to ask what she means by an _impossibility._ He considers what she’d said about her boyfriend’s soulmate, and his earlier distrust of her gets turned around on her behalf. Nathalie deserves a soulmate who wants to know _her,_ not one that refuses her out of some fit of pique.

She sighed. “I am. It’s further from here, but it’s all I can afford on one salary, and I couldn’t just stay there. Besides there wouldn’t be room. She’s got a kid.”

“I see.” The whole situation is unfortunate, and he guesses it must be a very minor part of it for her, but he can’t help consider the late nights and overtime that are ahead of them as they head towards Fashion Week, “You know, if the journey is a bit much some nights as it gets busy here, you’re welcome to use one of the guest rooms.”

Emilie won’t mind. The only thing she might tell him off for not thinking up a better solution for Nathalie. She’s never met someone whose life she hasn’t thought she could take over and improve.

Her face goes completely blank for a moment before she blinks and seems to recover herself.

“Thank you sir. I don’t think that’ll be necessary but,” She pauses, “thank you.”

* * *

“You’re not going to die.” He says awkwardly. They both know he’s not telling the truth, but he doesn’t want to admit that. Not while she’s still here and he can feel her breathing in his arms. Not while he can still tell himself there’s still a possibility they can save her.

“I am.” She says, “Even if I somehow don’t die from this Miraculous I’m going to die, and they’re going to tell him, unless,” She looks up at him, “Sir, could you hide my body? I could just disappear and then they won’t inform him.”

He can’t meet her eyes. Imagining her corpse is bad enough. Imagining _him_ having to handle her body and do what, bury her somewhere no-one will ever find her or something, makes him want to recoil.

Emilie had been bad enough and that was supposed to be temporary. What Nathalie’s asking for is another thing entirely, and it’s a mad idea even for _them._ “I think it might look a bit suspect if _two_ women in my life mysteriously disappear.”

He feels her slump slightly in his arms, and when he looks down she’s not longer looking at him, but letting her head lie against his chest looking at nothing in particular. “I didn’t think of that.”

She can’t have being thinking much he thinks but he doesn’t say it. The idea of depriving herself of a memorial, of somewhere the people who love her can mourn, it’s just wrongheaded and she’ll understand that once she calms down.

When it doesn’t look like she’s going to say anything more, he says stupidly, “I didn’t think your soulmate was around to tell.”

* * *

“Sir,” Nathalie’s tone is apologetic as she wakes him from where he’s fallen asleep on his desk, “We need your signature.”

He takes the papers from them and signs them without reading them. Right now he doesn’t give a fig for the company. He almost wishes it would fail and could stop having to pay it any attention. It would feel poetic if _Gabriel_ fell apart while he himself did.

Emilie’s _dying._ Normal medicine can’t save her, and it’s too late for ceasing to use the Peacock to do so either. They know that now and he doesn’t see the point in a world that exists without her.

His assistant has gone back to her desk. It’s dark outside and she shouldn’t be here now. He’s probably due some email from the payroll department reminding him about the law when it comes to overtime.

She’s sits there working efficiently as if that isn’t the case. As if today is normal was just a normal day in the office and Emilie wasn’t dying upstairs.

Nathalie goes through her life without her soulmate.

He’d not really thought about it since that day they spoke about it. In part because he’s had other things on his mind, and in part because after that conversation he’d felt embarrassed about how he’d inexplicably pushed about her personal life.

She knows near everything about his of course but that’s different. He pays her for her time, and her abilities, not for her secrets.

Now though he can’t help but wonder how she does it.

“Nathalie?” He asks. 

She looks up, and for a moment he almost pretends he’s forgotten what he meant to say but suddenly he feels like he has to know, “How do you manage? Without your soulmate?”

Nathalie puts down the piece of paper she’s holding before answering. “I just do. I don’t have any other option sir.”

He considers her. It seems unfair. Life is unfair; he has proof of that upstairs, but he knows how they’ve done this to themselves. How Nathalie’s possibility of a match disappeared is something he doesn’t know, and that suddenly feels urgent that he should. That he should know if someone in this household could still have a future.

There’s many reasons she might have a mark, and he _does_ think she has a mark especially with how covered up she dresses even in the heat of summer, and still think it not possible to find her soulmate. The world’s a big place. It doesn’t have to be that’s she’s found them and been rebuffed.

“And it’s certain there’s no chance?” He says, “If there’s anything I can do to help you find your soulmate, I’m happy to do it?”

Perhaps that’s a bit much of a promise have made an employee but with how much he’s been asking of her it seems a fairer return than her salary does, and now he’s faced with losing Emilie he understands much more how hard it must be to be without your soulmate.

It would be nice to have something he could actually fix.

She shakes her head. “I know who mine is.” She says, “ _That’s_ not the problem. Just forget about it sir, it’s not something you can fix.”

Of course she knows who it is. It was silly of him to think otherwise when he _knows_ how good her research skills are. That was certainty in her voice though, and that means she’s found them, and that’s what’s made her think it’s impossible.

It could be like that ex of hers. Maybe her soulmate made a mistake or was tricked into committing to someone else.

It feels like more than though. If it was just like that she could fight for them. This is something else. He may have been more right than he realised when he compared their situations earlier.

* * *

“Not around?” Nathalie asks, “No, he’s around. I don’t. What did you think the situation _was_?”

“I always thought he was probably dead, or maybe he lived somewhere on the other side of the world or something.”

She’s stopped sobbing but she hasn’t made any move to change position and loath as he is to release her, he wishes he could see her face for this conversation.

She gave a hollow laugh. “I _wish._ That would make things easy. No unfortunately they’re not going to have any trouble finding him.”

Not for the first time he wonders if he understands her at all. “You can’t really?”

“Can’t really what?”

“You don’t really wish he was dead?” He can’t imagine anyone having that level of vitriol. Especially someone who’s been as kind and supportive of him as she has.

“Oh. No I don’t. Of course not. I didn’t mean _that._ I’d never want that. It’s just it would be easier if it was someone I could never meet and not,” She cuts off. “It doesn’t matter.”

It _does_ matter. This is the most he’s _ever_ heard about her soulmate. He hadn’t even been sure of the correct pronoun for them until today.

* * *

Gabriel stares at the portrait. It still doesn’t seem real. He can’t quite believe that Emilie is lying down below him, and she’s never going to wake up unless he can retrieve two pieces of magic jewellery no one has seen in years.

He stands there alone, until Nathalie comes to stand by his side.

She’s alone too he remembers.

Nathalie reaches out to him. She hesitates with her hand centimetres away from him as if waiting for him to react. He doesn’t move, and her hand closes on his upper arm, making him sigh.

“I’m here for whatever you need.” She says.

They can be alone together for a little bit.

He pulls her against him, and she tenses but then relaxes into his embrace. He almost expects to start crying, but instead they just stand there for he has no idea how long.

“I’m going to bring her back.” He says, and Nathalie’s hold on him loosens. She knows what he and Emilie had discovered. Of just how she can be saved.

She steps back, “I’ve _tried_ sir. I can’t find them. They weren’t in Tibet when the temple fell.”

Her eyes are wide and beseeching and he forces himself to meet them despite how their colour echoes the magic of that cursed Miraculous that had caused all of this.

“I know.” He doesn’t blame her, “You don’t have to. I’m going to draw them out.”

“What do you need me to do?” She says.

* * *

He finds himself stroking her hair aimlessly. “Would it be that bad?”

“Would what be?”

“If he knew? I mean he’s your _soulmate_. I can’t understand how on earth he could have rejected you,” and he really doesn’t, sometimes it’s hard for _him_ to resist her, and he has a match, “but shouldn’t he know about your death? Even if only so he knows what he’s lost.”

He’s quite willing to go and make that quite clear to him if she’d like.

She tenses, and he wonders if he’s gone too far. He can’t understand what her situation can possibly be that she’s so convinced her passing must be kept secret.

She exhales and pushes him away, leaving him feeling cold where she’d been tucked into him, and looks out the window. “That’s not really the issue. I’m fairly certain he’ll know I’m dead.”

 _What._ How. That. If she’s saying _that_ then, well she’d said he was around, but that means that he’s _close,_ that he _knows_ her, that he’d notice her being gone, and that just doesn’t make any sense. 

* * *

He’s sat in the chair in despair at their loss, in despair at what had happened to Adrien, when he feels her presence, and then her arms slip down over his shoulders and he feels _her._

Funny how her weight makes him feel lighter.

The thought comes to him would be so easy to tilt his head up to hers, and let their lips meet.

They’re both matchless. No one would censure them. Rejecting your match is one thing, but plenty of people build new relationships with other bereaved people after their soulmates have died. _Nathalie_ had tried even, though he’s never heard of any other partner since the one who broke up with her for his apparently still living soulmate.

Except his soulmate is still there, lying beneath them right now waiting for him to bring her back, and he has no reason to believe that Nathalie wouldn’t pull away from him in disgust given she knows that.

* * *

“But,” he starts, and he just does _not_ understand, “If he’s going to know anyway, then why are you so set against the hospital informing him?”

“I’m not concerned about him knowing that I’m _dead,_ I’m concerned about him knowing he’s my soulmate.”

“But,” He repeats like an idiot, “But he _has_ to know, he’ll have your _name._ Even if he was blind someone would have told him what it said.”

She shakes her head. “He doesn’t.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It’s not reciprocal. It’s not a match. I have his name, but he doesn’t have mine.”

“Did you ask him?” He asks and berates himself immediately. Obviously she hadn’t or her soulmate would have caught on.

“It’s pretty obvious when you introduce yourself and someone doesn’t react,” she says, “but no I’ve seen his mark, and I’ve seen his wife’s. They’re the match, I’m just…some random mistake I guess.”

He stares at her in horror. He’d thought that sort of thing was a cautionary tale. He didn’t think it actually happened. He’d met people with multiple names, and he’d heard of people _without_ any marks, but to have a mismatch, that’s something different. That throws the whole system into question.

You’re meant to fit the other person perfectly, you’re supposed to be able to lean on each other. It’s not _right_ that Nathalie’s apparently perfect for someone and they’re not for her.

* * *

Mayura stares at the wall opposite, but he can see her eyes aren’t focusing on it. He pulls the broach off her when she doesn’t destransform and catches Nathalie under her arms when she begins to swoon.

Swearing he detransforms himself. Hawkmoth can’t be found with Nathalie, and it’s going to be easier to get back to the car in their civilian forms.

“Can you walk?” He asks her, “If you lean on me?”

He can carry her, but he’s not sure he can carry her _that_ far, and it will only bring attention on them that they don’t want.

“I” She focuses on him, “think so.”

They make slow enough progress that he’s almost considering picking her up when a man and a child coming the opposite direction suddenly stop.

“ _Nathalie_?” The man says, “Are you ok?”

“Does she _look_ ok?” He snaps at him.

The little girl holding the man's hand flinches and the man frowns at him, and Gabriel wants to ask him want he expected.

Nathalie’s hold on him tightens slightly, “Julien?”

He wishes she hadn’t spoken because that spends her into a coughing fit and he can barely hold her up. At home he’d let her down to ground but he’s not doing that on a dirty street.

This Julien’s concern flashes through the Butterfly Miraculous and he can’t help but wonder who he is to Nathalie.

“Do you, do you need help?” Julien asks, “What’s wrong with her?”

“We need to get her to the car.” He says ignoring the other part of the question, and looking over people’s head for it, and _there_ he can see where it is. “Over there. Help me pick her up.”

The man looks at him oddly but helps him get her over her shoulder.

“Is she going to be alright?” Julien asks as they get Nathalie sat in the car.

She’s barely conscious at this point and he _needs_ to get her home _right now,_ and answering probing questions is the last thing he needs to do when he doesn’t know how close this man is to Nathalie and what excuses she have already given him _._

He means to say she’ll be alright but he looks at her again and the words dry up in his mouth.

“I’ll get her what she needs.” He says instead.

The suspicious look on Julien’s face softens slightly, “I’m glad she has you now at least.”

That his phrasing is slightly odd is something Gabriel doesn’t realise until much later.

* * *

“You see?” She says, looking back at him. “I can’t have some official just break that news to him, I mean how would you feel in that situation?”

Terrible. He’d feel absolutely terrible, and guilty too, for not realising, and for, but no Nathalie’s soulmate hasn’t put Nathalie through everything he has so whoever he is he _wouldn’t_ feel that particular shade of guilt.

“Exactly.” Nathalie says having evidently decided for herself what the look on his face meant, “Every single thing I’d done would be second-guessed. It would look like I was trying to pry my way into his life, and into his relationship and I haven’t, I’ve _never_ tried to break up that marriage.”

Something feels wrong in her scenario and he can’t put a finger on why. The idea of keeping this secret feels off somehow. She’d asked how he’d feel and it’s different for him, he knows that, because he knows that Nathalie’s done the exact opposite of that for his marriage, and though he supposes she could be seen as having inveigled her way into his life it’s only ever been to his benefit.

“He’s an idiot if he’d think that. You’re not like that.”

Nathalie stares at him like he’s a puzzle she’s trying to work out.

“I can tell him that if you like.” He finds himself saying, “It would involve all of my least favourite things, but I owe you rather a lot, so.”

“What?” She almost whispers.

“If you didn’t want it to come from some random official. I could tell them instead if you wanted, and you know explain all your good qualities and how you’re not like that. “

* * *

“Father?” Adrien says, “Does Nathalie not have a soulmark?”

He almost chokes on his mouthful of food. Of all the things he thought Adrien might bring up at dinner he never considered that. Thank god Nathalie’s safely upstairs unware of any of this.

“Of course she does.” He says.

“Oh.” Adrien looks down at his plate, “I thought, maybe, well it doesn’t matter.”

“Look at someone when you’re talking to them.” Whatever manners his classmates might have he’s not having Adrien fall to that level, “You haven’t been asking her about it have you? Nathalie’s soulmate is none of your business.”

His son looks guilty and he clearly has been. 

“I wasn’t trying to be nosey.” Adrien says, “It’s just people have been known to get them not much older than me, and you’re never around to ask about it, so.”

“Well I’m here now.” He resigns himself to the conversation, “But leave Nathalie alone about it. It’s a painful subject for her.”

Adrien eyes widen slightly, and bizarrely he smiles at him, “Of course Father. I’d never have mentioned it to her if I knew that.”

* * *

“That’s, Gabriel, that’s not necessary. I just, don’t want him to know so he can mourn me normally without all of this.”

Nathalie’s soulmate does not deserve her in the slightest. That much he’s certain of.

He reaches out to take her hand, “He knows you well enough that he’ll mourn you?”

“Um, I mean, I think so.” She says. “I'd like to hope so anyway. Or maybe I shouldn’t. maybe it’d be for the best if he just doesn't care, and can go on happily with his life without sparing a thought for me.”

“How would that be _better?_ ” He asks appalled.

“I want him to be happy. That's all I've ever wanted.”

Gabriel understands loving someone and wanting to give them the entire world, but this disinterested love of Nathalie's is something else. He'd destroy the entire world for Emilie if he had to but that has the pay-off of him _having_ Emilie, or at least knowing he'd have her love and approval for what he’d done.

Nathalie doesn’t even seem to want _that._

And he shouldn’t be surprised because isn't that exactly what she's been doing for him?

She's killing herself for his sake and he's never really given that enough thought why, just accepting her sacrifices as she offered them to him, as if they hadn't wildly careened past what was expected from her in her job back when Emilie became ill.

* * *

Nathalie stares at her phone in consternation. “Sir, did we meet a friend of mine after one of the akuma attacks?”

He’d put that interaction out of his head but it’s not a good sign if Nathalie isn’t remembering things during her episodes.

“Ah, yes, a Julien I think? He helped me get you into the car.” He explains, even as he wonders if Nathalie remembers anything at all after using the Peacock Miraculous, whether she remembers all his remonstrances against using it, whether she remembers his concern.

Her voice breaks him out of his thoughts, “But he doesn’t?”

“We weren’t transformed. He had no idea what was really going on.”

“Good,” She says but she’s still fiddling with her phone, “He didn’t, say anything odd did he?”

“Odd? Not that I can think of.”

“Right.”

“Nathalie?” He asks, “Is everything ok?”

He’s never asked how she explains away everything to the people in her life.

“Just some things I need to clarify with him.” She says.

“He’s not?” He trails away unsure exactly _what_ he was going to ask if this man was to Nathalie.

“He’s an ex, but we’re still friendly.”

“Ah.” Wait, “He’s not the one who meet his soulmate is he?”

“That’s him.” She confirms.

There’s nothing much he can say to that.

* * *

“Maybe this is a good thing,” Nathalie continues and even _he_ can hear the faint hysteria in her voice, “Maybe I was always meant to die like this and _that’s_ why my mark is like this, so I can do what’s needed and nobody will regret my death.”

“That’s not true.” He says, “I will.”

He’s fairly sure he’ll regret it his entire life. Not for moral reasons, he doesn’t have many qualms when it comes to getting what he wants, but faced with losing her he can no longer pretend that Nathalie isn’t important to him, that she _doesn’t_ have any place in his affections.

That if Emilie had died another way, and not set him on this quest then, but he shuts that trail of thought down, there’s no point imagining impossibilities.

Nathalie opens her mouth to say something then closes it.

“He might not but _I_ will.” He says, and she still looks sceptical and he has to convince her because he can’t bear her thinking that because of the mess with her mark no-one cares for her, “You’re my dearest friend, and my rock, and I don't know what I'll do without you.”

He’s never told her that before he realises, but it’s the true. It’s not as if he just goes around hugging his employees.

Nathalie pulls her hand out of his.

“Adrien will miss you too.” He adds knowing he sounds petulant but he doesn’t understand why she's drawing away from him.

“Adrien coped with losing his mother. He'll cope with losing me. And you'll both have _her,_ you won’t need me.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” he says, Nathalie is Nathalie and Emilie is Emilie, the presence of one of them doesn’t make up for losing the other, “And you don’t know that we will anyway.”

“What?”

“I'm not winning with you.” He admits, “I can’t see that I’m going to win without you.”

* * *

Nathalie stirs on her bed, and he hastily straightens up where he’s been sitting on the other side of it.

She doesn’t wake up, and he physically relaxes even as his mind only panics more. She’s not getting better. He can’t pretend that’s not the case anymore.

Lying there she looks fragile, as if the slightest pressure could break her. She’s been losing weight, and not in a good way.

He’d only taken off her blazer, shoes and socks when he laid her down. To do anything more feels like a transgression into something Nathalie hasn’t offered him. Apart from anything else he has no idea where her soulmark _is,_ and thus no idea how to avoid it when undressing and re-dressing her.

Her bra must be uncomfortable lying down like that but he can’t get it off without taking her top off, or he can’t without her co-operation at least. Nathalie suffers for his sense of propriety and that feels disturbingly like a metaphor.

All the reasons he comes up with for why he hasn’t changed her into her pyjamas feels like an excuse and part of him wants to undress her. To see exactly how much weight she’s lost. To see who her soulmate is as if that would solve the puzzle of her. To see if he could stay unaffected.

It would be very easy to lie down there beside her.

* * *

“Gabriel.” Nathalie starts but he waves off his interruption. It’s suddenly very clear what he has to do.

“I’m not letting you die.” He says.

“Gabriel,” She tries again, “You don’t have a choice. We fixed the Miraculous and I’m not getting better-the damage is _done._ We researched everything that could possibly help for Emilie, and we found _nothing._ ”

“No we didn’t. We didn’t research everything,” He clarifies at Nathalie’s frown, “We never found anyway to fix the Peacock before, we don’t know what else might be out there that we’re missed. There are other Miraculouses out there we’ve not come across yet. We can _save_ you.”

“But Emilie,” 

“Emilie’s waited so long, a little longer isn’t anything. And if we find a way to save _you_ then maybe we can save her too. I’m not talking about retiring Hawkmoth entirely, he’s just going to become more strategic, more targeted instead of jumping at every possible emotion to defeat the heroes.”

“If you’re sure that’s what you want.” She says, but she purses her lips, and for the first time when he looks in her eyes he doesn’t see her usual belief in him, “I still want that lawyer though if you’re offering to pay.”

That’s his Nathalie alright. Always looking out to for the practical side of things. “I'll pay,” He says, “But you’re not going to need it.”

She smiles at him, but it feels fake.

**Author's Note:**

> this has been percolating in my brain for months, and somehow ended up somewhere I didn't expect.


End file.
